I take off running as soon as I'm far enough away down the bridge, hearing the water flowing past beneath my boots. Asgard is stirring, but barely anyone's out yet. I speed up as I run through the city, heading across the bridge toward the mountains and my favorite spot there.

I hit the slope with enough speed to get me about halfway up before I have to stop to catch my breath. I lean against a rock and inhale deeply, enjoying the scent of the fresh air and the sound of being alone.

"Hey, Loki."

Turning my body to face the newcomer, I'm just in time to avoid the sword blade streaking at me. I smoothly duck as the blade slashes where my head had been and unsheathe my daggers, getting into a defensive stance in time to face her next attack.

I deflect her follow-up swing and slip inside her reach, pressing my dagger against her throat. She slams her knee up, catching me off guard, and springs away, landing lightly, her boots shoulder width apart. I growl and without thinking hurl one of my knives at her in frustration. She knocks it out of the air with her sword and sprints toward me. I bring up my remaining knife, really regretting my decision to throw my other one.

I manage to catch her blade on mine, but her momentum causes her to crash into me and it sends the two of us rolling down the slope of the mountain. I don't know how we don't end up dead from the sharp blades of my knife and her sword, but we don't. My eyesight blurs as a mix of black and green swirls before me. She's blocking my vision.

Our tumble stops at the bottom of the slope, her knee in my chest, her blade at my throat. Her hand clamps down on my wrist, preventing me from raising my dagger in an attempt to unseat her.

A raspy laugh escapes from my throat, my voice holding a note of aggravation. "Very well, you win this fight."

Gamora slides off of me and examines her blade casually, her eyes every so often flicking to me. "You're usually not this easy to surprise, Loki."

I clamber to my feet, offering her a shrug as I sheathe my dagger. "My head's not in the game today."

She's quiet and doesn't meet my eyes. There are leaves in her hair, and a smudge of dirt on her face from the roll down the mountain. I self-consciously run my hand through my own tangled hair and remove a twig from it. I'd do the same for her, but she'd lay me out on the ground if I so much as tried to touch her. I've seen her leave Fandral moaning on the ground when he tried to tuck a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.

So I don't. I don't even mention it.

"It should be," she says finally. Gamora looks up at me, shaking her head slightly to clear her wavy, red-tinted black hair from her face. "It's Reaping Day."

I shrug again, holding my face impassive. "So?"

She sighs and rolls her eyes, looking away from me. She starts to walk away, staring at the city of Asgard in the distance. Without looking back, she tosses my other dagger to me. I catch it easily.

"How...?" I start to ask, and then decide to forget about it. Gamora has been training since she was a young child. And being the daughter of Thanos and one of the Black Order assigned to Asgard, she's allowed, encouraged, to train vigorously. I might say it's even demanded of her.

Hurrying to her side, I deposit my other dagger in my belt as I settle into step beside her. The mountainside is peaceful, the lake spreading out before us. It separates us from the rest of Asgard, one of the reasons the two of us meet here to duel. There is no one else around, no one to judge me, no one to judge her, no one to judge us.

It's only us.

"I know what you've been thinking," Gamora states, refusing to look at me. She's still talking about the Reaping. I try to catch her eye but she turns her head. "You think that you should take your chances in the arena. Don't. It's not a game, Loki. Stay far away from it."

"Stay away from it?" I repeat, a touch angrily. "Gamora, perhaps you haven't noticed, but the children of Odin aren't exactly known for staying away from the Contest of Champions."

"But that doesn't mean you have to go!" Gamora snaps, her gaze pinned on the ground. "I know you think you have to go, but you don't. It won't prove anything, in the end. My father's games never prove anything for anybody but himself."

"Why do you care?" I spit. "I'm just one of your father's subjects, anyway. Why do you care what happens to me, whether I live or die, whether I fight in the Contest or not?"

Gamora spins to face me, but doesn't speak. I can see the anger in her eyes, though, and I know I'm pressing the right buttons.

"You're safe," I continue. "I'm not. You don't have to be reaped. You don't have to endure the agony –"

The words are hardly out of my mouth before Gamora leaps on me, forcing me to fall to the ground under her brutal strength. I land on my back in a particularly rocky area, a jolt running hrough my body, and my head slams down on a sharp rock, causing me to flinch. But I refuse to give her the satisfaction of crying out.

"Don't speak to me about agony!" she insists, pressing her hand to my throat to stifle my air supply.

I just laugh, as best I can. "Why?" I spit, my voice rasping. I bring up my leg hard and strike her, sending her tumbling over my head. I twist around so my arms are positioned under me and meet her angry gaze as she spins around.

There is silence as we glare at each other. Then she turns and sits down, and I move to be next to her. We sit in silence, each allowing the other to simmer down. We argue quite often, and it seems to always end the same way: the two of us, staring out at the lake in the sudden quiet. Ironically, it's moments like this that I realize how beautiful she really is.

"We could do it," Gamora says, not looking at me. "If you'd only tell me where."

I grunt. "Not this again. You know I'm not going to reveal its location to you." I resist the urge to glance reflexively behind me, in the direction of the path off Asgard. "That's my escape route." The one thing I don't trust her with.

She turns to me, her eyes pleading but her face hard. "Loki, you won't have a chance to use it if you're drawn."

"Who says I'm going to be drawn?" I demand. "Besides, didn't you hear? It's Volstagg's year to volunteer."

Gamora picks up a rock and hurls it into the lake. The ripples spiral out away from the point of entry. She's angry, very angry, with me right now. She usually is, especially on the days of the last several Reapings. It's like she's trying to protect me, wanting me to stay out of the arena. But this, this talk of running away, this is fairly recent. Back when we were younger, I discovered a way to leave Asgard that was more unconventional than Thanos would like, and about a year ago I happened to mention it to Gamora, in a moment when my guard was lowered. Ever since, she's been trying to get me to use it, to leave Asgard behind.

But I don't want to. Whether I like it or not, Asgard is my home, and I have a claim here. I won't run, for I have no reason to.

Besides, unlike her, I can't just avoid the Contest. At this point, competing – and winning – are tradition. Especially in my family, where both my siblings fought in the Contest and won it. It's easy for her to tell me not to get drawn into the arena, for there's nothing for her there. But there might be something for me, in that arena.

I know I will be able to kill rather well. I can betray and lie like no one else I know, and I won't go down without a fight and many slit throats. But now, winning doesn't mean the same thing, what with Thor's victory. How can I top that? Even if I win, I'm still not Thor. Odin will still favor my brother. I'll still just be Loki. Winning is the correct path, yes, but not the only one for me. I need to do so much more.

But winning will bring me so much closer to being Thor's equal.

I scowl. I'm tired of playing second to my arrogant elder brother. Tired of standing in his overreaching shadow. I want to win something for once, to be somebody. To no longer be the quiet younger brother of two of Asgard's three champions, to gain respect in the Asgardians' eyes. I just want to do something unexpected, something no one would see coming. I just want to make my father proud.

I don't count Hela, usually, when I'm ranking myself and my brother according to how my father favors us. She's barely in Asgard, and she's despised by Odin, by Frigga, by Thor.

And me? I'm slightly fascinated by her, and slightly afraid of her. I cannot figure out how else I regard her. With respect? With disgust? With – dare I say it – understanding? I can never tell.

She's quite an enigma, Hela.

"Loki," Gamora says. I feel her eyes on me but I continue staring at the effects of her stone on the lake, the ripples lazily drifting away from the point of origin. "The Contest of Champions is just my father's recreation of his own journey to bringing about the state he calls balance. Don't allow envy of your brother to draw you into his reenactment."

I humph. "Who are you to speak of envy? You are your father's favorite. You need envy no one."

Gamora grabs my face and forces me to look at her, her green-skinned hand preventing me from breaking eye contact. Her touch is gentler than I would have thought, especially with the seriousness and anger of her gaze. "Loki, we can run. We can escape. But only if you tell me where."

"Why do you want to run?" I ask her softly, drawing away from her touch. I use my hand to remove hers from my face. "You're the daughter of Thanos."

She looks at me sorrowfully. "Exactly."

"I'm not telling you," I say, looking back at the lake. "You know the Kree would descend on us faster than I could say 'I told you so.' Or worse, the Skrulls would find us. We wouldn't be safe, not for long."

Gamora stands and kicks my leg. I recoil and watch her warily. "You know what your problem is, Loki?" she asks, fury edging her voice. "You can't see past the step you're in the process of taking."

I look up at her, annoyed. "Are you calling me shortsighted? At least I'm not the one who thinks running away into space would be safer than here. It's you who needs to learn to see more clearly."

For a moment, I think that I might have just pushed her over the edge, that she might actually kill me this time, but Gamora just shakes her head and stalks off. I watch her go.

"Welcome to the Contest of Champions!" I call after her spitefully. "May the Balance be restored in you."

She turns and her eyes are a mix of regret and anger. "The Balance doesn't need to be restored in me," she spits. "It does in you."

And she walks off, toward the bridge leading back into the city. My hand creeps around to the back of my head and feels the cut from the rock I had landed on earlier through my black hair.

It's bleeding.